


Things Change

by Callisto



Series: Season 5 codas [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Coda, Episode Related, Episode: s05e06 I Believe The Children Are Our Future, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Season/Series 05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-09
Updated: 2011-04-09
Packaged: 2017-10-17 19:37:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/180468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Callisto/pseuds/Callisto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Sam is haunted, Dean knows this. A part of him held to that wall and squeezed felt nothing but vindicated to hear Sam say the words out loud to Jesse. But Dean is also the Winchester who has been to hell and back, the Winchester who has seen the end of days in a ruined garden, and as such, he is the one who knows all about bad decisions made for entirely the right reasons.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Things Change

**Author's Note:**

> _Castiel: “A year ago you would have done whatever it took to win this war.”  
>  Sam: “Things change.”  
> \--5.06 I Believe the Children Are Our Future--_
> 
> Beta'd by Ancasta.

They reach the Star-something motel a little after midnight. Dean tosses Sam his B Hogg credit card and tells Sam to go check them in. Sam gives him this measured look Dean has been getting a lot lately, but Dean waves him off and says he’ll get the bags out the trunk. Which might be easier said than done seeing as how the real reason he sent Sam away has nothing to do with the two-way street Sam has gotten so twitchy about, and everything to do with Dean not groaning like a ninety-year-old in front of him. Having the possessed hold back on Lucifer’s vessel while encouraging them to beat the crap out of Michael’s is just not doing him any favors right now.

He takes a deep breath and makes it out of the car and onto the tarmac without faceplanting. But straightening up is a close call, and he wobbles precariously before his balance kicks in. His left side fucking _hurts_. Nothing’s broken, he knows that, but the muscles down his back and over his chest are wrenched and sore, and they’ve been tightening steadily over the last hour.

“It’s room 16, on the left. Guy says... Dean?”

“Yeah?”

“You okay?”

“Peachy.”

Dean is aware that he’s still not exactly vertical. And that Sam is stooping to peer at him from about three feet away. It’s just if he hunches like this, he can breathe enough to get actual words out.

“You sure? Because you look...you’re standing funny.” And then, of course, Sam does that Sam-thing he always does at times like these, he steps in and _puts his hand on Dean’s shoulder_.

The flinch and the bitten off ‘fuck!’ send Sam back so fast he stumbles. And then Dean has to straighten all over again while Sam stands there, falling over his sorries and looking like he might step even further back. Like he might even bolt.

“Sam... Sam! Dude, it’s just my shoulder, okay? From...” he winces as he straightens, “from, you know...” he gestures what he hopes is a back and forth between two walls, as he catches his breath and hopes Sam doesn’t take any more steps back.

Sam doesn’t. He does, however, manage to look even more miserable, eyebrows pulling up in the middle in this weird new worry line he’s developing there. But Dean is too sore and tired right now to do any Sam-coaxing.

So he waits, gets a little straighter, and Sam finally steps forward again. He holds the room key out slowly, as if either Dean or the key might be radioactive. “Do you want to...? I’ll... I’ll just...”

Dean takes the key. Sam goes to the trunk and heaves the weapons bag and both duffels onto his shoulders, and then walks off toward the room with his head down. Dean shakes his head and limps after him. They really need to start finishing sentences around each other again.

Sam offers him first shower, which Dean was planning on taking anyway. It doesn’t turn out to be much of a prize when instead of a pounding spray of steam, he gets a lukewarm drizzle that does diddley squat for any of his aches. He took the first aid kit and his sweats in with him so he could do all his clutching and cursing out of sight. Which he does, leaning his good side against the sink to get his feet in his sweats, and pulling the damn things up in a series of slow one-handed tugs. Then he dry-swallows a couple of painkillers and heads back into the room.

Sam is sitting on one of the beds and gets to his feet as soon as Dean comes in.

“Hey.”

Dean grunts an acknowledgement and moves over to the other bed, where Sam has put his duffel and thought to open it up for him. He sits down carefully, not wanting to jar his left side but wanting to get a T-shirt on and get under the covers before his muscles freeze and lock up completely.

He hears a noise behind him and doesn’t turn because, right... _Ow_. Sam is in the kitchenette instead of the bathroom for some reason. He can hear the click and slide of a door and a switch of some kind, and Dean wonders what the hell Sam has found to cook at this hour. He suddenly gets an image of wrapping his hands around a cup of hot chocolate and opens his mouth. But he’s never asked Sam for hot chocolate his entire life, and apart from the mocking, he’s pretty sure you need actual chocolate powder to make it happen. So instead he contemplates the t-shirt in his hands and the fun it’s going to be getting it over his head.

...and then it’s not in his hands anymore. Nothing is. As he’s flailing the mattress dips and something hot and soft drapes over his shoulder and down his back and chest, and thank God it’s Sam making the dip because he has no choice but to fall forward and close his eyes when all that tension and pain unlocks in one blessed holy fucking shiiiiit...

“Good, huh?”

There may be actual tears of relief in his eyes. Not that it matters as they’re closed and pressed into Sam’s left shoulder.

“Shit, Sam. ‘S better than chocolate,” he mumbles, not entirely sure he hasn’t just drooled a little.

“Stay still, okay?”

Fine by Dean. He has no clue what’s going on but since he’s actually managing in and out full breaths for the first time in hours, he can stand not knowing.

“It’s a hot towel.” Sam tells him anyway, his voice low and rumbling near his left ear. “There’s an oven and it works, so I figured it might help. Hang on.”

And then there’s even more warmth, a band of it around his middle. Dean squints an eye open and looks down between them. He can see a lurid green and blue flower around his middle.

“Um, pillowcase,” explains Sam, even though Dean didn’t ask. “It’s kind of a small oven, and you were in the shower with the other towel.” Sam’s holding the pillowcase closed over the towel draped over Dean’s shoulder, and he’s being careful not to touch. They’ve each got a knee crooked up on the bed, they’re half turned to the other and Dean’s forehead is still heavy on Sam’s collarbone. Dean can’t help but smile a little. This is probably the most awkward semi-non-hug they’ve ever done. And right now he can’t think of anyplace else he’d rather be than sitting here with his head on Sam’s shoulder and a pillowcase and a towel ingeniously knotted around him. He’d forgotten how Sam can be sometimes, the way Sam will hover, chew his lip and maybe bitch Dean out, and then just step up and _know_ exactly what he needs.

“Dean, I’m sorry.”

Of course, that’s another part of Sam. The new Sam. The one Dean got back with a knife and a flinch on a dusty road. The one who wants to literally carry the weight of the world on his shoulders.

Fuck that. Dean’s had enough sorries out of his brother to last a lifetime.

“Dude, if we weren’t brothers and I could actually get there, I’d be on one knee asking you and your hot towels to fucking marry me right now, so shut up.”

“Illegal in what, fifty states, Dean? And gross in all of them, by the way. But thanks for the thought.”

“Anytime.”

And it’s comfortable again. Weird, but comfortable. Dean hesitates, and then he takes a deep breath and moves his palms from the mattress to the rough denim over Sam’s hips. He feels his brother freeze, and he knows that this is so far the wrong side of chick flick he may have to get drunk immediately. But Sam’s gotta stop this.

Sam is haunted, Dean knows this. A part of him held to that wall and squeezed felt nothing but vindicated to hear Sam say the words out loud to Jesse. But Dean is also the Winchester who has been to hell and back, the Winchester who has seen the end of days in a ruined garden, and as such, he is the one who knows all about bad decisions made for entirely the right reasons.

So he says it, quiet and steady. “Anything that keeps you safe is still good, Sam.”

He hears Sam swallow, feels him inhale slowly. “Says you. Who gets tossed into walls in my place.”

Dean raises his head off Sam’s shoulder and lets his hands fall back to the mattress. “Says me. None of this vessel crap is your fault, just like it’s not mine. And so far I’d also say our collective ‘fuck you’ is holding up pretty damn nicely.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Hey, it just means that in a room full of demon bitches, you get to go in first from now on, dude. You being the more valuable vessel and all.” He puts a smile in his voice. “You’ll see, Sammy, it’ll drive them all nuts.” He keeps the smile on his face until he sees the glimmer of one returned.

“First, eh?”

“Absolutely. Guns blazing, chief. Me covering your gigantor rear.” He looks around. “Now, if that’s all settled, get me another towel, bitch. This one’s cold.”

He gets another hot towel. He also gets the heel of Sam’s hand pressed just so into the knots in his back until Dean starts making geisha jokes and Sam smacks him and calls him an idiot. Dean then wants coffee but he can’t stop yawning.

“One more?” asks Sam, picking up the towel Dean has just shrugged off.

“Nah, I’m good.”

“Arms up, then. Well, arm up. You shouldn’t let your skin get cold after that, might seize up again.”

Dean looks at him. Sam is sitting on the other bed with the worst kind of self-satisfied smirk on his face and he’s stretching out the neck of a clean T-shirt of Dean’s in his hands, clearly intent on getting it over Dean’s head.

“Jesus Christ.”

“Yeah, yeah, old man. Arm up.”

“Shut up.” But Dean does as he’s told for once. Let Sam have his day. His back and chest feel fucking awesome.

T-shirt on, he settles back onto his pillows and knows he’s minutes from sleep. But he wants to make sure of something first...

“Sam?”

“What?”

“You’ll make a wonderful wife one day.”

“Turn off the light and bite me, would you?”

No hesitation, no flinching. Just one hundred percent pure pissy kid brother.

Dean grins in the dark.

******


End file.
